Thursday, November 20, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Civic and Ethnic Identities Can Co-Exist as Long as Times Remain Good, Drobizheva Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, November 20 – Russian civic
identity “does not contradict” ethnic identities either of ethnic Russians or
non-Russians, Leokadiya Drobizheva says, as long as economic and social
conditions are good. But when they are deteriorating as now, ever more people
in Russia connect that development with ethnic factors and the two identities
begin to split apart.

At a Moscow forum on “Multi-National
Russia” earlier this week, Drobizheva, who heads the Center for Research on
Inter-Ethnic Relations at the Institute of Sociology and who is perhaps Russia’s
most distinguished scholar on that issue, argued that “civic identity is
becoming ever more significant for Russia’s peoples” (nazaccent.ru/content/13921-sociolog-v-rossii-grazhdanskaya-identichnost-ne.html).

That identity has co-existed with
ethnic identities, except when the latter grow into nationalism, she said, noting
that in recent times, her researchers have found that most Russian citizens see
ethnic tensions as declining as a result of the social self-confidence they
have gained from a rising standard of living.

But that positive development is now
at risk, Drobizheva suggested. “Ever more people now connect what is happening
in their lives and in the country with the ethnic factor,” and “that means that
when the social status of people will worsen, [Russia] will encounter a
worsening in inter-ethnic relations” as well.

Because the risk of that is real, “preventive
measures” by the government and society “will have great importance” in
blocking the rise of ethnic nationalisms that would lead to the growth of
nationalisms of various kinds and thus undermine the progress that has been
made toward a civic identity in the Russian Federation.

Drobizheva’s words parallel those of
Joseph Stalin in his 1913 “Prosveshcheniye” article which became the basis for
Soviet nationality policy. In that article, written at Lenin’s request, the
future dictator wrote that “when times are good, common interests are first and
foremost, but when times are bad, everyone retires to his own individual
national tent.”